Tuesday, April 10, 2007

There's a daycare center in the building where I work and another one down the street from my house. So, every workday, at both ends of my commute, I can't help but see a parade of parents pushing strollers, holding babies, pulling toddlers by the hand. Will I become inured to the sight over time? Maybe. It's hard to tell. But not yet.

Of course it's the tiniest, newest babies that hurt the most. Especially the ones still light enough to carry, sleeping in their car seats, and the ones snuggled against their mothers so that all I can see is a little pink cap. If the parents catch me staring, they almost always smile. Everyone looks at babies.

When I notice a double stroller, I peer into it intently, hoping to see that one child is obviously older than the other. Or that they're both boys. Or that they're both girls. I ask myself why it should make a difference. But the answer's obvious -- it shows me exactly what I've lost. What's the opposite of "there but for the grace of G-d go I?"

I have seen the baby who was supposed to be my son's best friend three times now. He is very cute, and looks nothing like my son, for which I am incredibly grateful. That one twinges still. But the girl baby of a friend who was supposed to be two months older and was in fact born three weeks before he died? Not hard at all. If it was somebody else's baby it might feel different...